Welcome to the first episode of the Pioneering Ideas podcast. Get insight into the Pioneer funding strategy in a Q&A with Brian Quinn. Next, in a conversation about our recent Behavioral Economics Call for Problems (time stamp: 4:35), director Lori Melichar and Drs. Kevin Volpp and David Asch, co-directors of the Foundation's Behavioral Economics Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania, talk about the pros and cons of making proposals public so ideas can spread. Then Harvard's Ted Kaptchuk,a Pioneer grantee, talks about the developing science of placebo studies (9:25). And Senior Program Officer Paul Tarini talks with Pioneer grantee Ben Heywood about how PatientsLikeMe could change medical practice and research (13:10). It's a stimulating mix of conversations, all of which offer a window into what, exactly, constitutes a pioneering idea. Listen now or download the episode:

Guests

David Asch, MD is the executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Health Care Innovation. He is also a Professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Health Care Management, and Operations and Information Management at the university.

Reading List

Learn more about the ideas and projects discussed in this episode.

Meditation Without God – "Ted Kaptchuk and colleagues at Harvard Medical School found that subjects with irritable bowel syndrome who took placebo pills had a significantly better outcome than a matched control group that received no treatment," the Washington Post reports. "The twist in this experiment was that the subjects were actually told they were getting an inert placebo. Yet it worked."